High Court Rules Prosecution Of Avowed Draft Resisters Legal

March 20, 1985|The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the federal government did not violate the Constitution when it enforced the draft registration law by selecting only avowed resisters for prosecution.

The 7-to-2 decision held that the prosecution policy, which led to the indictments of 16 young men before the government adopted a new approach, did not amount to selective prosecution. Nor, the court said, did the policy violate the draft resisters` First Amendment right to free speech.

The decision, written by Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., upheld a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in California. That court had reinstated the indictment of one of the 16, David A. Wayte of Pasadena, after a federal district judge dismissed it on a finding of selective prosecution.

At issue was a policy known as ``passive enforcement,`` which the government employed during the first few years after President Jimmy Carter reinstated draft registration in 1980. Under this policy, the government did not actively seek out violators, but rather waited for young men to identify themselves as non-registrants or for others to report them.

The policy was an interim measure, which the government later replaced with an active approach of matching drivers` licenses with registration records.

Wayte was typical of those who fell within the initial policy. He wrote a series of letters to the White House and the Selective Service System, vowing ``never`` to register for ``your draft`` and expressing unconcern ``about your prosecutions.``

Other developments at the court Tuesday included:

(BU) The court expanded the rights of public employees against arbitrary dismissal. The court ruled, 8 to 1, that the constitutional guarantee of due process of law entitles public employees to a ``pretermination hearing`` at which they must be given notice of the charges against them and an opportunity to respond.

The case concerned a security guard who was summarily dismissed by the Cleveland School Board on a charge of dishonesty.

(BU) The court unanimously reinstated a finding of illegal sex discrimination on the part of a small North Carolina city that chose a man rather than a better qualified woman as recreation director.